If you’ve ever dug deep into your family tree, you know the thrill of stumbling across a connection that feels straight out of a novel. For me, that moment came when I traced a link to the De Grey family—specifically John Augustus de Grey, 7th Baron Walsingham—and discovered that his second wife was none other than a music-hall performer named Daisy Danvers. What started as a simple ancestral note quickly unfolded into the story of a grand Norfolk estate, a distinguished barrister-turned-peer, and a colourful theatrical lineage full of drama, divorce, and even a Lusitania survivor.
Merton Hall: The De Grey Family Seat for Over 600 Years
The De Grey family had lived on the site of Merton Hall, near Watton in Norfolk, since the middle of the 14th century, when they inherited the manor through marriage. The impressive Jacobean house that most people remember was largely built in 1613 by Sir William de Grey on an E-plan layout in red brick with stone dressings, pinnacled gables, and Renaissance-style details. A striking stone gatehouse (attributed to the architect Robert Lyminge, who also worked at Blickling Hall) was added around 1620. Over the centuries the family added Victorian extensions, including a west drawing room and an east “Bachelor Wing” designed by Edward Blore in the 1830s–40s, plus stables and an enchanting shell grotto.
I found this lovely 1886 sketch of the hall at its most majestic—before any later decline—and it perfectly captures why the place felt so imposing. The house was still very much a family home when the 7th Baron knew it.
Tragically, a major fire broke out on 14 January 1956 while the building was being converted into a boys’ preparatory school. An electrical fault in the Long Gallery started the blaze; the main 1613 house was gutted. Only the north-west (Bachelor/service) wing survived intact and was later restored. The gatehouse and stables remain today, but the full grandeur of the original hall is gone forever. The surviving parts are still Grade II listed, and the De Grey family continues to own the estate.
John Augustus de Grey, 7th Baron Walsingham (1849–1929)
Born in London on 21 March 1849, John Augustus de Grey was the son of Thomas de Grey, 5th Baron Walsingham, and his second wife, the Hon. Emily Elizabeth Julia Thellusson. He was a half-brother to the famous 6th Baron (the entomologist and politician Thomas de Grey). Educated at Cambridge, he was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1874 and built a solid legal career. He served as Recorder of Sudbury (from 1896), then Recorder of King’s Lynn (from 1897), and became a Metropolitan Police Magistrate in 1905—a post he held until he unexpectedly succeeded to the title on 3 December 1919.
An enthusiastic shot, he published Hit and Miss: A Book of Shooting Memories in 1927. He also owned a beloved holiday home called Fredmoen (“the place of peace”) in Åfjord, Norway—a salmon-fishing retreat he described as his “holiday paradise.”
He married first on 24 April 1883 at St Jude’s, South Kensington, to Elizabeth Henrietta Grant. She died in 1927. The couple had children, including a son who became the 8th Baron and a daughter, Alice Mary de Grey, who became an actress.
The Second Marriage: Enter Daisy Danvers
Just months after losing Elizabeth, the 79-year-old widower married again on 14 August 1928. His bride was Marguerite Vernon (stage name Daisy Danvers), the widow of Thomas Grainger/Granger Godley of Scarborough. Daisy had been a successful music-hall “skirt dancer” and comedienne. She was only 38 or 39 at the time—less than half her new husband’s age—and had been a minor when she first married Tom Godley (she even used the surname Morgan on that certificate, possibly to avoid needing parental consent).
Tom Godley, incidentally, was a 1st-class waiter/steward on the RMS Lusitania. He survived the 1915 torpedoing by a German U-boat and was in one of the lifeboats that helped rescue survivors, including Captain Turner. He died in 1917.
Daisy became Baroness Walsingham for a brief time, but sadly she outlived her titled husband by only two years. The 7th Baron died on his 80th birthday—21 March 1929—at Merton, and is buried in St Peter’s Churchyard there. Daisy died on 1 August 1931.
The Theatrical Father: Walter Vernon (aka Walter John Fox)
Daisy’s background was every bit as colourful as her own stage career. Her father, Walter Vernon (real name Walter John Fox), was a well-known comedian and burlesque actor who later became a respected artist specialising in racehorse portraits. He performed with his first wife, May Audley (born Mary Jane Huggins), from the mid-1870s until their acrimonious divorce in 1883. Vernon accused her of adultery with multiple men; she countered that they had never been lawfully married because he had a previous wife. The proceedings were messy, and Scottish newspapers even reported his “death” the following year—only for him to reappear alive and well, now partnering with another burlesque actress, Bel Lorrimer. Their act continued until around 1892, after which he seems to have retired from the halls and focused on his painting.
Music-hall research is notoriously tricky because performers used stage names, birth names, or mixtures of both. Daisy herself appears in records as Marguerite Vernon or Marguerite Morgan. Walter’s surviving horse paintings still turn up in auctions today—quiet proof of a second act that was far more respectable than his first.
Why This Story Matters to My Family Tree
Finding the 7th Baron in my own line was exciting enough, but learning about Daisy and her father turned the discovery into pure gold. It’s a reminder that peerage families weren’t always stuffy drawing-room affairs; sometimes they married the stage—and brought a bit of sparkle into the ancestral record. Merton Hall may be a shadow of its former self, but the stories of the people who lived there (and the unexpected guests like a skirt-dancing baroness) keep the place very much alive.
If you’re researching music-hall ancestors yourself, remember the name-changing trap—census returns, marriage certificates, and newspaper archives are your best friends. And if anyone has more photos of Daisy Danvers or Walter Vernon’s stage days, I’d love to hear from y